Unhappy Customer Sues Xiaomi Over NFC Support For Mi 5s Plus

Xiaomi might not be selling as much devices as Huawei, OPPO and Vivo lately (based on Q3 2016 data), but this company is still one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China. Xiaomi had introduced four high-end handsets in the last couple of months, including the Xiaomi Mi 5s, Mi 5s Plus, Mi Note 2 and Mi MIX. Each of these phones is kind of unique and aims for a different consumer base, and we’ve talked extensively about each and single one of them, from a 5.15-inch Mi 5s flagship, all the way to the Xiaomi Mi MIX concept, bezel-less flagship phablet.

That being said, let’s talk more about the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, shall we? This 5.7-inch phablet had been introduced back in September, and it has been available for purchase in China for a while now, since last month. Now, the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, much like every other device we’ve mentioned above, comes with NFC, which should enable the device to serve Chinese consumers as a metro card, bus card and also enables them to pay for goods using Mi Pay (as per Xiaomi's promise). Now it is worth noting that the Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus did not get this feature out of the box, Xiaomi had announced that the feature will land with an MIUI 8 update by the end of October, but that did not happen. Xiaomi had, since then, updated the listing on their official website, and it now says that the update is going to land by the end of 2016.

Now, having that in mind, it seems like an unhappy customer asked for a refund from Xiaomi, as he had purchased the Mi 5s Plus a while back, and is unable to use NFC as he would want to, so he wanted to get his money back. The refund was unsuccessful, and the consumer has decided to sue Xiaomi in Beijing. The court accepted the case a couple of days ago in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act. The case is now fully opened and under investigation, which is actually quite interesting. We will see what happens here, but considering Xiaomi updated their listing without any warning and simply decided to move the release date a couple of months, and on top of that failed to refund the consumer, who knows, perhaps he has a case here, we’ll see.

Kristijan has been writing for Android Headlines since 2014 and is an editor for the site. He has worked as a writer for several outlets before joining Android Headlines, and has a background in writing about Android and technology in general. He is a smartphone enthusiast that specializes in Android applications, and that platform in general. Contact him at Kristijan. [email protected]